Korean Nuke Games

About the Author

Peter BrookesSenior Fellow, National Security AffairsDouglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy

For the second time in three years, the
North Koreans have been caught with their hand in the nuclear
cookie jar.

U.S. officials long feared that Pyongyang has at least two nuclear
weapons and enough fissile material for perhaps eight more. Now we
know it's worse - North Korea isn't just developing nuclear weapons
at home, it's proliferating nuclear materials abroad.

In late 2002, Washington discovered that North Korea had been
cheating - for at least four years - on its 1994 agreement to
freeze its nuclear-weapons program.

Now the latest U.S. intelligence (gleaned from Libya's dismantled
nuke program) suggests that Pyongyang sold Tripoli two tons of the
uranium hexafluoride gas used in the production of weapons-grade
highly enriched uranium.

But we've snapped up all of Libya's processed uranium - so why is
this significant?

Well, first, it confirms longstanding suspicions that North Korea
has two active nuclear-weapons programs: The original, Soviet-era
plutonium-based program that was supposedly capped by the 1994
agreement - and this parallel, uranium-based program, too.

Second, it shows that Pyongyang has already crossed a nuclear
Rubicon: It's selling nuclear weapons materials (and, perhaps,
technology) abroad. That proven willingness to proliferate is a
standing threat to international peace and security.

Third, the rogue regime can probably pump out nuclear material
faster than we'd previously believed. Pyongyang, highly paranoid,
isn't likely to be selling this stuff abroad at the risk of
undermining its own stockpile at home.

The $64,000 question is: Who else has bought North Korean nuclear
materials and/or technology? So far, there's no evidence of anyone
besides Libya. But the prime suspects are Iran and Syria - both bad
boys already have strong ballistic-missile-trading relationships
with Pyongyang.

The nightmare scenario, of course, features an impoverished North
Korea selling nuclear materials to a terrorist group. That remains
unlikely - even for Pyongyang. (That nuke-toting terrorists could
come back to bite you.)

The problem is: You just don't know what you don't know,
especially when it comes to proliferation. So what to do in the
short run?

Understandably, some people remain skeptical about the nuclear
finger-pointing. (And it's peculiar that Libya hasn't just told us
where and how it got the goods . . .)

OK, fine. Answer the skeptics by giving a sample of the Libyan
uranium to the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency for
independent analysis.

If the IAEA reaches the same conclusion as Oak Ridge, Washington
should find it a bit easier to strengthen the flabby resolve of the
international community to deal with the North Korean proliferation
threat.

Six-Party Talks: There are few good military
options for dealing with the North's nuclear program (which is
scattered in underground sites across the country). That leaves
diplomacy.

Since August 2003, North Korea has attended three rounds of
nuclear discussions, involving the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and
South Korea. (It passed on a fourth round last fall in hopes of a
President Kerry.) Restarting these talks remains the best option
for resolving the Korean nuclear issue.

China: Beijing has more influence here than
anyone else. In fact, Mao Tse Tung once quipped that North Korea
and China are "as close as lips and teeth." But Beijing's efforts
to "pressure" Pyongyang into behaving responsibly have been a lot
like Chinese opera - lots of noise and arm-waving, with nothing
really going on. If China's as committed to nuclear
nonproliferation as it claims, it should lean harder on its old
ally. Now.

In a nutshell, the news from Libya is that the problem of North
Korean nuclear proliferation is even worse than we'd thought.
Unfortunately, few outside North Korea know just how much worse it
really is.